You may have noticed that I’ve begun to update the HERO OF AGES copyedit. Now that I’ve got a rough draft on Alcatraz 3 done, I can get to the other pressing matter that I’m behind on. After that, I can do the Warbreaker revision and I should be caught up. (Whew.) All of this caused by writing a book I shouldn’t have. That’s what always gets me into trouble.

Alcatraz had a wild ride on the Amazon bestseller lists last week, and now looks to be stabilizing in the 1,000–2,000 range. I’ll be perfectly happy if it holds there for a while. More importantly, I’ll be eager to see what the Nielsen Bookscan numbers say this Wednesday, as that is a far better measure of book sales. The Amazon sales rank system is cool, but since Amazon only represents a small segment of the market, a really great sales rank doesn’t necessarily mean that the book sold a lot of copies. (Actually, on a side rant, I wonder if Amazon has considered standardizing what people can call an “Amazon Bestseller.” Anyone with a clever marketing campaign or a couple dozen friends can drive a book high on the lists for a very short time and become an Amazon Bestseller—which, of course, means that being an Amazon bestseller is nearly meaningless as a credit.)